Tito Ortiz: Gone Fishin’

(Oh my God that looks fun!)

Despite being offered a four-fight contract extension before his bout with Lyoto Machida last Saturday, and despite his vague statements during the post-fight interview, Tito Ortiz confirmed last night that he’s absolutely not coming back to fight in the UFC. “Me going to somewhere else is 100% happening,” Ortiz said, like some sort of caveman, or Indian chief, or Yoda. “The way [Dana White] treats me, I can’t continue on with them. He’s a monster and I’m going to go elsewhere where they respect me.”

Ortiz will now begin a three-week tour in support of his autobiography This Is Gonna Hurt, and will then go about deciding where to fight next. He hopes to compete again this fall, and according to MMAWeekly, he’s considered starting his own MMA organization.

In other UFC news you can use…

— The Ultimate Fighter 7’s resident psycho Matt Brown (6-6), who was out-hustled by Amir Sadollah on last night’s episode, will be taking on TUF 6 castmember Matt “No Regard” Arroyo (3-1) in a welterweight match at the TUF 7 Finale (June 21st; Las Vegas, NV). Brown and Arroyo previously met at an RFC event in November 2006, where Brown won by TKO. At this point, Brown is only the fifth TUF 7 fighter expected to have a spot on the finale card, in addition to the show’s two finalists, and an all-but-confirmed match between Matthew Riddle and Dante Rivera.

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The Gambling Man’s Guide To Elite XC

(Oddsmakers say, don’t blink.)

If betting odds are any indication of how a fight will go, then the question in the Kimbo Slice-James Thompson bout this weekend isn’t so much what will happen but rather how long it will take. Of course, you can also bet on those other guys/girls who happen to be fighting, but it doesn’t look nearly as fun. Let’s take a look at the odds, shall we?

Kimbo Slice (-600) vs. James Thompson (+400)

For those of you not experienced in gambling away your money on MMA fights, the above line means that you’d have to bet $600 on Slice to win $100 (assuming he’s victorious). On the flipside, a $100 bet on Thompson would net you $400 if he won. If you’re interested in stimulating the off-shore economy, you go ahead and make that Thompson bet.

Those lines confirm what we already know: Kimbo is a heavy favorite. Perhaps suspecting that action on this fight might be lean, Bodoglife has provided some other options.

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Busta Rhymes In The Place To Be (Elite XC)

(Whoo-ha, bitches. Whoo-ha indeed.)

This morning I woke up, drank my coffee, checked my email, and became suddenly concerned that perhaps I’d wandered into a time warp. Was it 1996? Had I slipped through some tear in the space-time fabric? If not, then how do you explain this email from Elite XC:

Multi-platinum rap music star Busta Rhymes will bring his unique brand of hip-hip to the Prudential Center on May 31st at MMA’s (Mixed Martial Arts) first primetime television event on the CBS Television Network.

Performing the track “Don’t Touch Me (Throw Some Water On ‘Em)” from his upcoming Interscope Records release “Blessed,” Rhymes will set the stage for up-and-coming MMA heavyweight contender Brett Rogers’ bout against John Murphy at the milestone event, “CBS ELITEXC SATURDAY NIGHT FIGHTS.”

My first reaction was, are you shitting me? But as I read on it became clear that Elite XC was not, in fact, shitting me at all. Busta Bust will be in full effect on Saturday night.

The thing about fighters coming out to live music is it usually seems like a better idea than it actually is. Then again, if anyone can pull it off, it would have to be someone who is animated like, say, a Busta Rhymes.

Those of you who don’t care for the whole hip-hop/nightclub feel of earlier Elite XC promotions and were hoping that CBS might curtail some of that, you’re about to be disappointed. Then again, if you don’t like Busta I can only assume that you did not come of age in the nineties, otherwise you would have an irrational affection for him that you find yourself still unable to explain lo these many years later.

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Great Moments in MMA Product Endorsement

I guess you could call this CagePotato’s first original highlight reel. We rounded up the most insane TV commercials starring MMA fighters and stuffed them into a single video for your convenience and enjoyment. Some of them are beloved classics; some you’ve probably never seen before. Noticeably absent are the unauthorized Fedor Emelianenko honey-drink spot (because we’d like to avoid any rude letters from Fedor’s lawyers), and the Rich Franklin “Xyience Teacher” commercial (because it seems to have disappeared from the Internet). But if we’ve left out any other good ones, shoot us some links in the comments section. As Randy Couture might say, “Oh, you’re gonna like this.”

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Gerald Harris’s ‘TUF 7′ Blog: A Rock and a Hard Face

(Jesse Taylor pisses his shorts on national television.)

Every Thursday morning, Team Rampage member Gerald Harris blogs his reactions to each new episode of The Ultimate Fighter 7 on CagePotato.com. Here’s what he had to say about last night’s ep, in which retard-strong (and retard-smart) Jesse Taylor pounded his way to victory, and Amir Sadollah and Matt Brown put on the best fight of the season.

***

By now everyone should know that Jesse Taylor is for real. He’s not the most exciting fighter in the world, but he’s solid and gets the job done. I can’t hate, because I respect winners and he’s also a Team Quest fighter so I was rooting for him. Dante just laid there and took a beating. He’s a veteran in the game and also a brown belt under Ricardo Almeida, so I assumed that he would catch Jesse, but Jesse just punched the [blank] out of him for two full rounds.

Now, let me get to the action! Matt Brown vs. Amir Sadollah was crazy. That’s a fight that people would pay money to watch. I think the first round could be given to Brown for the aggression and last second takedown. Amir seemed to pick up steam in the second round, took Matt down, punished him from the top, and eventually sunk in a triangle choke. I liked the fight because it wasn’t a sloppy slugfest. Brown has a great boxing background and Amir showed his Muay Thai and ground game with the strikes and sub finish. It’s crazy that the more you pressure him, he gets stronger and doesn’t fold — that’s the quality of a good fighter. I can say the same about Brown plus he was very humble in his loss and showed respect for his opponent.

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L.A. Times Takes Aim at UFC Media Policies

(They don’t make ‘em like this anymore.)

It’s no secret that the UFC loves controlling stuff, especially if that stuff has to do with the media. The L.A. Times has apparently had enough of it. Their Las Vegas blog, The Movable Buffet (get it?), took issue with the UFC’s strict rules following UFC 84 this weekend:

One local journalist who covered Saturday’s Ultimate Fighting Championship card at MGM’s Grand Garden Arena wrote me an e-mail, offering this impression: “UFC attempts to be more controlling than other sports. UFC sounds like it’s trying to hem in media.”

…

We were discussing his experience as well as the credential application that UFC demanded that I sign to be approved to cover the fight. The application specified everything from the trivial, forbidding my wearing certain clothes, to the ridiculous, controlling where and when I was allowed to write about the event forever more. In explaining this bizarre credential application that most would call not an application but a contract, UFC events manager Diann Brizzolara wrote me: “We have the right to protect our brand and how coverage taken from our events is disseminated.” Actually, UFC does not have that right to control “how coverage taken…is disseminated” at all. This rather unique privilege in fact is what the credential application is trying to give them a back door claim to having.

When you hear these stories about the UFC’s obsession with control, it makes you wonder what they’re so afraid of. Is it a holdover from the dark days when the “human cockfighting” label nearly drove them into extinction? Or is it just that the UFC is leery of the media in general, despite the fact that they need the media in the same way every pro sports organization does: it’s free advertising.

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Gina Carano Has No Idea Where You’re Getting This ‘Sex Symbol’ Stuff

(Gina pretends not to realize how hot she is.)

Over at Yahoo! Kevin Iole is doing his typical fighter fluff piece, extolling the virtues of Gina Carano and simultaneously forcing a storyline about her sister’s struggle with drug addiction into every possible inch of the article. Seems like someone really took to heart those journalism classes where they discussed ‘theme’.

Anyway, one of the more interesting moments comes when Carano expresses confusion at MMA fans and their preoccupation with her as a sex object:

“All the attention has helped me, but it’s also hurt me,” she said. “Sometimes, you get portrayed the way you don’t want to be portrayed. People start thinking about you a certain way. I’m like, ‘What’s everybody talking about with this sex appeal thing?’ I don’t get it. I’m not that way. I’m not that person and I’m never going to be that girl, because it’s not in me to get people’s attention sexually. But that’s what people are saying out there now.”

I have to ask myself a couple different questions when I read that. For starters, do I believe that Gina Carano doesn’t realize that she is very attractive for a woman in general, and extremely attractive for a successful female athlete? I do not. I’m pretty sure she knows by now. I’m also pretty sure she knows that it’s a big part of the reason she’s getting all these career opportunities outside of MMA while other female fighters toil in relative obscurity.

If my assumptions are correct, then I have to ask myself, why is she being so coy about it? If she realizes that the Maxim photo shoot and the tight American Gladiators outfit were designed to promote her as a sex object, why is she pretending to be surprised? The answer, I suspect, is that no matter how great the money and attention is, it probably gets really annoying to have everyone focus on only one thing about you, especially if that one thing is your looks.

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